> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:33:23 -0500
> From: Brooks A Rowlett
> Organization: None whatsoever
> To: Andrew Toppan ,
> Mahan Naval History Mailing List ,
> MARHST ,
> World War II Discussion List

> Subject: Wreck of ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE
> Reply-to: mahan@microworks.net

> Over the weekend i bought a January 1948 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
> magazine. There is an article in this issue, by Paul C Stimson (CO),
> ” ‘Round the Horn by Submarine”, detailing the June 1947 transit of
> Cape Horn by the USS SEA ROBIN (SS-407). The author believed it was
> the first time a submarine passed Cape Horn under its own power, all
> known Japanese and German transits being ’round the Cape of Good Hope.
>
> There are photos of Port Stanley in the Falklands: Montevideo: and
> perhaps most interesting from the WWII naval history standpoint, a
> photo of the wreck of the ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE. At this point the GRAF
> SPEE has been considerably cut down from the familiar pictures from
> the time of scuttling. Some 2&1/2 decks of the tower bridge extend
> above the water; some miscellaneous wreckage, and a portion of what is
> probably the funnel is elevated perhaps 6-8 feet (~2 meters) above the
> water, as well as a similar height of platform of some sort abaft this.
I would like to have a copy of that photograph for my archives. Here
in Argentina is quite difficult to find National Geographic issues.

>
> Correspondence last year revealed that today, the entire remains of the
> vessel are underwater, scrapped down to reduce the danger to fishing
> boats, but still a marked wreck posing danger to larger vessels.
I think I was the one that gave the information about the Graf Spee.
May be I wasn’t clear enough. What I said is that some small fishing
boats were lost on it recently. This tells us that the wreck is very
near the surface.
On other aspect, there were some investigators, who were thought to
be working on a program about old shipwrecks in the River Plate, who
pulled up some pieces of the wreck. Among them there was one of the
smaller cannons.

Greetings from Argentina. |>
Arturo L. A. Lisdero Molina /|\
lisderoa@overnet.com.ar /|| \ “The Pilot”
/_|| \
Larrea 934 1*B /___+–_\|>
1117 Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA ~~~\______/~~~~~

Over the weekend i bought a January 1948 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
magazine. There is an article in this issue, by Paul C Stimson (CO),
” ‘Round the Horn by Submarine”, detailing the June 1947 transit of
Cape Horn by the USS SEA ROBIN (SS-407). The author believed it was
the first time a submarine passed Cape Horn under its own power, all
known Japanese and German transits being ’round the Cape of Good Hope.

There are photos of Port Stanley in the Falklands: Montevideo: and
perhaps most interesting from the WWII naval history standpoint, a
photo of the wreck of the ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE. At this point the GRAF
SPEE has been considerably cut down from the familiar pictures from
the time of scuttling. Some 2&1/2 decks of the tower bridge extend
above the water; some miscellaneous wreckage, and a portion of what is
probably the funnel is elevated perhaps 6-8 feet (~2 meters) above the
water, as well as a similar height of platform of some sort abaft this.

Correspondence last year revealed that today, the entire remains of the
vessel are underwater, scrapped down to reduce the danger to fishing
boats, but still a marked wreck posing danger to larger vessels.
Moreover a good part of the hull has been submerged into the mud of the
seabed. This is the first picture I have seen showing an intermediate
state.

The National Geographic Society has recently issued the >entire< run of the magazine (through 1996 I believe) on a set of CD ROMs. IIRC this set is only $150. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine used to provide quite a lot of coverage of nautical, maritime, and naval subjects, and several interesting items exist in the pre-, during, and post- World War II era issues. Each page (or two page photo spread) is reproduced as a JPEG image on the CD-ROMs. This article is in the January 1948 issue, Vol XCIII, No 1, pages 129-144. The GRAF SPEE picture is on p 136. -Brooks

For the British Pacific Fleet itself:
list errata:
Destoyer WESSEX is listed twice, KempenfelD is actually KempenfelT.

Add CA SUFFOLK which operated with the British Carrier Task force for
Operation LENTIL, strike on Sumatra 4 January 1945.
DD BARFLEUR of the ‘Battle’ Class arrived in theater in time to join
operations, June 45.

Now…
Depending on the definition, the rest of this may be extraneous
information, but I am providing it just in case….

Tim’s list is fairly complete if we are only dealing with the British
Pacific Fleet UNDER THAT NAME, which according to Edwyn Gray’s OPERATION
PACIFIC was formally established 22 Nov 1944. Note that the Eastern
fleet still existed.

The Following are Eastern Fleet Ships not included in the BPF list.
However, especially the CVE’s and any force assigned to escort them were
also used to support the BPF carrier force by providing spare aircraft.
The Eastern Fleet also included the French BB RICHILIEU and the Dutch CL
TROMP, and the very old Greek Armored Cruiser AVEROFF(!)
Eastern Fleet ships:
BB QUEEN ELIZABETH
BB VALIANT
BB NELSON
BC RENOWN
CVL UNICORN
CVE BATTLER
CVE ATHELING
CVE EMPRESS
CVE AMEER
CVE SHAH
CVE HUNTER
CVE STALKER
CVE KHEDIVE
CVE EMPEROR
CVE ARBITER
CVE RULER
CVE BEGUM
CA LONDON
CA SUSSEX
CA CUMBERLAND
old CA HAWKINS
old CA FROBISHER
CL ACHILLES (New Zealand)
CL NIGERIA
CL KENYA
DD ROTHERHAM
DD RAIDER
DD ROEBUCK
DD RAPID
DD ROCKET
DD RACEHORSE
DD REDOUBT
DD SAUMAREZ
DD VENUS
DD VOLAGE
DD VIGILANT
DD VIRAGO
DD VERULAM
DD NUBIAN
DD TARTAR
DD ESKIMA
DD PALADIN
DD PENN
Frigate TRENT
Frigate SWALE
Frigate PLYM
a lot of submarines…

-Brooks

Having done some preliminary research on the British Pacific Fleet to
incorporate into my website. I found the following ships most
probably assigned
to the Pacific Fleet at any given time; finding out when and where will take
more time, unless help can be given. Could some of you please try to check if
there’s a ship too much or one missing.

Thanks a lot,
Tim
________________________________
HMS CV Indomitable
HMS CV Illustrious
HMS CV Implacable
HMS CV Indefatigable
HMS CV Victorious
HMS CV Formidable

HMS BB King George V.
HMS BB Duke of York
HMS BB Howe
HMS BB Anson

No CAs

HMS CL Argonaut
HMS CL Euryalus
HMS CL Black Prince
HMS CL Gambia
HMS CL Newfoundland
HMS CL Swiftsure
HMCS CL Uganda
HMCS CL Ontario

HMS DD Quilliam
HMS DD Quadrant
HMS DD Quality
HMS DD Queenborough
HMS DD Quiberon
HMS DD Quickmatch
HMS DD Troubridge
HMS DD Teazer
HMS DD Tenacious
HMS DD Termagant
HMS DD Terpsichore
HMS DD Tumult
HMS DD Tuscan
HMS DD Tyrian
HMS DD Grenville
HMS DD Ulster
HMS DD Ulysses
HMS DD Undaunted
HMS DD Undine
HMS DD Urania
HMS DD Urchin
HMS DD Ursa
HMS DD Kempenfeld
HMS DD Wager
HMS DD Wakeful
HMS DD Wessex
HMS DD Wessex
HMS DD Whelp
HMS DD Whirlwind
HMS DD Wizard
HMS DD Wrangler
HMS DD Barfleur
HMAS DD Napier
HMAS DD Nepal
HMAS DD Nizam
HMAS DD Norman

Tim Lanzendoerfer | “I have just taken on a great
Amateur Naval Historian | responsibility. I will do my
Email: BWV_Wiesbaden@t-online.de | utmost to meet it” – Nimitz
—————————————————————–
The United States Navy in the Pacific War 1941 – 1945
http://www.microworks.net/pacific
The ships, the men, the battles
—————————————————————–
acquiesce

While re-reading Edwin Hoyt’s _Raider 16_, I can across a reference of
two sailing vessels used by the German Navy as training ships during the
1930s (one was still in use in 1939). Can anyone on the list provide me
with information regarding the Albert Leo Schlageter and the Gorch Fock? I
would also like to know what happened to these two ships during World
War II? Did they survive, and if so, when and where were they scrapped?
Thanks in advance, Ed.

Edward Wittenberg
ewitten507@aol.com

>
>John Lewis Gaddis in “Now we Know” (a survey of the Cold War) also uses
>this language, writing about a Soviet garrison-state empire vs an
>American cooperative “empire.” The fact that we won the Cold War, but
>are still deeply involved in the security structures of a global
>American committment, says a lot about a) inertia and b) how beneficial
>to everyone, not just us, this transnational system of cooperation has
>become.
>
>Timothy L. Francis
>Historian
>Naval Historical Center
>email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
>voice: (202) 433-6802
>
Hope I’m not killing a horse to kick, but I think there something to be said
in favor of precision in basic terms. I know both Lundestadt’s and Gaddis’
work and was thinking of Gaddis specifically when I made my post the other
day. Frankly I think the term “cooperative empire” is an oxymoron. The
reason nations throughout history have created empires is so they didn’t
have to cooperate. The Romans didn’t cooperate with the Gauls, they gave
them orders. If one was going to talk about an American “empire” in Central
America for the past century, I would be willing to listen. But surely there
must be a difference between coalition and empire. The fact that this web of
relationships between industrial nations continues despite the demise of the
Evil Empire underscores the point. We are now, as we have done in the past,
pursuing basic interests that we have always shared. If there comes a point
when those interests no longer coincide, the coalition will founder – just
as they have countless times in the past. There is something else to
consider. “Empire” has a negative tone in our world. Centuries ago gaining
an empire might get a king or queen the informal title of “The Great.”
Presently imperialism is very much out of fashion. The Cold War revisionists
that threw around terms of “new imperialism” when describing the US policy
after 1945 clearly meant it as a condemnnation or the US or as a means of
equating American and Soviet policy. (Remember “moral equivalency?”) If one
doesn’t like the term the “Free World” to describe the winners of the Cold
War, how about the “industrial democracies.” Whatever term one choses, it
describes a coalition, an alliance of a sort, not an empire.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

Astiz is a fascinating, if repugnant, example of the (inter-)national and
domestic security dilemma … especially as we see the distinction
between “military” and “domestic” becoming blurred by terrorism,
drugs, etc. The film “Clear and Present Danger” raised some profound
questions.

The Argentine junta’s pre-emptive extermination of leftist/intellectual
terrorism was entirely effective, to the point that Argentina was so
stable that it was becoming an effective *ally* in the effort to halt
Soviet-backed revolution/terrorism in the Western hemisphere.

However, the junta had so lost touch with (political) reality … in
its own total control environment … that it actually thought it
could take on Great Britain, without undue NATO interference. (The
parallel to Saddam Hussein’s arrogance/over-aggression is striking,
but unfortunately SH is not as geopolitically convenient/accountable
… and is far more dangerous, given his immediate sources of mass
murder technology.) It had also allowed monsters like Astiz to spawn.

The Argentine Army and Navy were sullied by their involvement in
suppression and their poor showing in the Falklands/Malvinas war.
The A. Air Force shown brightly for the opposite on both count.

A government must make a choice whether or not to combine security
forces or separate them. Stalin could repudiate and in-turn-purge
Yezhov and the NKVD hierarchy, after the great purges, at will, in
part because they were a separate entity … enabling his own
continued survival. Hitler was not personally capable of doing so
to his own lieutenants: he was much more loyal/”human” … to those
*near* him … as the survival of his Rumanian Jewish cook attested.

Speaking generally, should … or can …
… law enforcement agencies be kept separate from
the investigation and apprehension of political activity which *is*
… in the true sense … criminal in intent and consequences? By
the same token, can national security agencies be kept separate from
identifying/apprehending domestic threats to and/or corruption of
national security/survival?

The Defense Intelligence Agency was involved in counter-treason
operations during the Vietnam War … as the distinction between
political and military warfare blurred both in VN and at home.

In any case, a *junta* has no legitimacy … UNLESS it is dedicated
to the restoration … Reconstitution … of humane, democratic,
ethical society … truth and justice. … and *mutual* loyalty and
gratitude? The only legitimacy salvaged by Franco’s regime was his
political last will and testament … concession … of democracy
to King Juan Carlos.

If Astiz gave his interview to politically threaten, he has violated his
political amnesty and should now be prosecuted. (Anyone who murders
young women is unworthy of survival, anyway. Motherhood “solves”
female political agitation/restlessness and women are a people’s most
basic “natural resource.”) In any case, having embarrassed the junta,
aroused the left, and jeopardized the political truce/stability, I
suspect Astiz’ life will soon end in any number of ways.

Lou Coatney

Last year a very diligent Mahan list member transcribed five exciting
WW2 patrol reports from USS Nautilus (SS 168). I compiled his text into
a Word document of about 300K, roughly 70 pages in hard copy depending
on font size. E-mail me if you would like this file. My apologies for
not recalling the name of the member who did all the work!

[In the 1970s Astiz would have been a lieutenant in the Argentine
marines = “captain” in most land services. The junta’s standard method
for “disappearances” was to drug the captives and throw them out of
military transport aircraft over the Atlantic.]

Bragging about past lands Argentine in hot water

Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (January 16, 1998 07:08 a.m. EST) – The Argentine Navy on
Thursday detained one of the most notorious members of the military
death squads of the 1970s for 60 days for threatening journalists and
politicians in a magazine interview.

The state news agency Telam said retired Navy Capt. Alfredo Astiz was
taken to serve out his time in military barracks in the town of Azul in
Buenos Aires province.

The punishment was ordered by President Carlos Menem after Astiz said in
an interview with Tres Puntos magazine that he was tired of being
hounded by the media for his part in the 1976-1983 “dirty war” against
suspected leftists.

“I’m telling you, don’t keep on pushing us into a corner, because I
don’t know how we’re going to respond. You’re playing with fire,” Astiz
said, breaking years of silence.

“Because, do you know what? I’m technically the best trained man in this
country to kill a politician or a journalist,” said Astiz, who is still
subject to military discipline despite his retirement.

In an unusual display of unity, the government, opposition and human
rights groups all expressed outrage.

Interior Minister Carlos Corach described Astiz’s comments as
“frightful” and said the government would determine if they violated any
criminal laws.

Buenos Aires City Council declared Astiz persona non grata, and
congressmen called for his naval pension to be canceled.

Astiz, now in his mid-40s, was forced to retire from the Navy in 1996
after years of diplomatic pressure from France. A French court sentenced
him in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of nuns Leonie
Duquet and Alice Domon in 1977.

Sweden also wants to try him for the 1977 disappearance of Swedish teen
Dagmar Hagelin. Like the French nuns, she is believed to have been
killed at the infamous Navy School of Mechanics torture center.

In the interview, Astiz defended the dirty war as the only way to combat
subversion. He described killing guerrillas in shootouts, but denied
kidnapping Hagelin or taking part in torture.

“I never tortured anyone. Would I have tortured if they had ordered me
to? Yes, of course I would,” he said. “I might have made some small
mistakes, but in the big things I don’t repent of anything.”

-= END OF MESSAGE =-

[Marine LCdr Astiz commanded the Argentine unit on S Georgia Island in
the 1982 Falkland Islands War. (Argentine marine officers use naval
ranks.) The Argentine junta may have stationed him there to make him a
national hero: a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The British knew his past
but released him as a military POW.]

Former officer unapologetic for acts during Argentina’s Dirty War

Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (January 15, 1998 6:25 p.m. EST
http://www.nando.net) — A notorious former Navy commander said he is
unrepentant for his role in pursuing leftists — thousands of whom were
killed — during Argentina’s “Dirty War” on political dissidents, a
magazine reported Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Alfredo Astiz, who has been accused of contributing to the
deaths of two French nuns and an Argentine-Swedish teen-ager, became a
symbol of repression during the military dictatorship that ruled
Argentina after a 1976 coup until 1983.

“I am not sorry for anything,” Astiz was quoted as saying in his first
interview, given to the weekly center-left political magazine
Trespuntos.

“The navy taught me to destroy, to plant bombs, to infiltrate and to
kill,” he said.

Astiz, 47, admitted in the interview that political prisoners were
summarily executed during the Dirty War.

He noted that leftist guerrillas captured by security forces in 1973 had
been pardoned and freed. “We couldn’t risk that happening again,” he
said. “There was no other way.”

In 1983, a government commission determined that approximately 9,000
people were arrested or kidnapped and subsequently disappeared during
the Dirty War.

Asked how many he had killed personally, Astiz replied, “Never ask a
military officer that question.” He denied that he tortured prisoners
“because it wasn’t my job, but I would have done so if had been ordered
to do so.”

Convicted and sentenced to life in prison in absentia by a French court
in the 1977 murders of nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, Astiz retired
from the navy in 1996 amid French government pressure.

Astiz was among lower- and middle-ranking officers granted immunity from
prosecution in 1987 for human rights abuses during the Dirty War.

Half a dozen high-ranking officers, including two former presidents,
were convicted of murder and torture in 1983 and were sentenced to
prison. President Carlos Menem pardoned them in 1990.

Interior Minister Carlos Corach described the comments attributed to
Astiz as “terrifying” and said he would ask Argentina’s attorney general
to determine whether charges could be brought based on the interview.

Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Carlos Marron ordered Astiz confined to a naval
base for 60 days. Authorities described it as a “disciplinary measure”
after Menem ordered “maximum sanctions” imposed on Astiz.

Astiz denied that he participated in the kidnapping of Argentine-Swedish
teen-ager Dagmar Hagelin, who vanished in 1977. He said he knew who was
responsible, but declined to identify the person.

The girl’s father, Ragnar Hagelin, told a radio station that he was
“amazed” by those comments. “Astiz is a coward, a liar and is crazy
because he has been rejected by society,” he said in a telephone call
from Sweden.

Astiz has been accosted several times in public by individuals who have
insulted him and criticized his role during the dictatorship.

In the magazine interview, Astiz described Army Chief of Staff Martin
Balsa as a “cretin” for having said publicly that military officers
should have refused to follow illegal orders to torture and kill.

“The armed forces couldn’t exist if they did that,” he said.

By WILLIAM HEATH, The Associated Press